BSC-CNS Newsletter November 2018

Almirall and BSC to collaborate in SilicoDerm project

SilicoDerm aims to develop novel high-performance computational methodologies that facilitate the identification of active compounds for the treatment of inflammatory skin diseases such as psoriasis and atopic dermatitis. Víctor Guallar, EAPM group leader at BSC says that “this project shows the maturity of the modeling techniques developed at BSC to address real life drug design projects. We invested many years of research to get here."

BSC launches dataClay

BSC has made available to programmers dataClay, a data store that provides savings of up to 30% in time and code to application developers. dataClay is a distributed object store that avoids the need to have different data models in volatile memory and in persistent storage. dataClay performs the calculations directly on the object store, without having to copy the data to the application space, thus avoiding, both the time and energy costs associated with data transport.

New warning system for sand and dust storm in Burkina Faso

An early warning advisory system for sand and dust storms has been launched for the territory of Burkina Faso. Its core is a universally understood product based on colour-coded maps that indicate the risk of high dust events during the next 48 hours. This system is operated by the AEMET and BSC in collaboration with the Burkina Faso National Meteorological Agency. It is released by the WMO- SDS-WAS Regional Center for Northern Africa, Middle East and Europe.

New BSC start-up to minimize the impact of volcanic eruptions in the aviation sector

Start-up Mitiga Solutions has developed a technology that is able to evaluate the impacts of volcanic eruptions in the aviation sector. It deals with a software which allows airlines to know the risks that these natural disasters may cause to the activity of their flights. Mitiga Solutions won the award for the best start-up of the Pre-acceleration Program of Barcelona Activa 2018, and it has been selected for Barcelona Activa to represent the Catalan entrepreneur ecosystem in Japan.

Alfonso Valencia, appointed as a member of the IMI Scientific Committee

Alfonso Valencia, the BSC Life Sciences director, is from now and for a term of two years, member of the IMI (Innovative Medicines Initiative) Scientific Committee. This organism is an advisory group within IMI, a well-known public-private partnership aiming to speed up development of medicines. The Scientific Committee members are top experts from a range of different fields and participate in their individual capacity.

BSC to participate in the “Crazy about science” programme

BSC will take part in the next edition of “Crazy about science” programme, organized by the Fundació Catalunya La Pedrera. With “Crazy about supercomputing”, BSC will offer a complete programme that aims at showing the multidisciplinary research undertaken at the MareNostrum supercomputer. The course is directed toward first-year “bachillerato” students (equivalent to UK A Level) with a special interest in the areas related to the supercomputing and new technologies.

Minister Pedro Duque and Catalan Minister Àngels Chacón visit BSC

In the last months, the minister of Science, Innovation and Universities, Pedro Duque, and the Catalan Minister of Business and Knowledge, Àngels Chacón, have visited BSC. Both representatives had the chance to learn about the research being done at BSC, as well as the future challenges that the center faces.